Archive for April, 2009

I’ve been trying to participate lately in more “challenges”, it’s where a website or group picks a theme, idea or product and everyone makes something based around it and then shares their art. It’s so much fun to see all the different ideas others come up with all based around the same theme.

My “Artchix” yahoo group has a current challenge called “Go Fly a Kite” and my Melange team from Etsy has a challenge called “Ticket” and an idea came to me to combine the two and so I made this ATC called “Flight Ticket”.

Please visit the Melange team website and click on the “Mix it up with Melange” post comments section to find links to other participants art work: http://melangeonetsy.blogspot.com/ each Wednesday a new challenge will be posted.

I wanted to make something a little different than what I normally make with my soldering and decided to make a wall hanging, it was inspired by a piece from Sally Jean who is an amazing collage and soldering artist. I took 3 glass panels, each 3″ x 1″ and cut backgrounds for them from vintage French book paper and added the words “Home” “Tweet” and “Home” to each, on the last one I also added a cute little bird nest with blue eggs. I soldered each panel with scalloped edge solder and soldered jump rings to each then attached the panels together with more jump rings, hung a chain from the top and a tiny silver bird charm from the bottom. I’m thrilled with how it came out!

I logged into my Etsy shop tonight and found out that one of my items had been featured on the front page! I’m so thrilled to be picked and featured on the site Here’s a screen shot, my soldered button and game piece is on the bottom, middle of the screen.

This first one is an image of Alice peering over the edge of the mushroom to talk to the Caterpillar while he smokes his hookah. The image is colored with colored pencils and I added “grass” at the base of the mushroom and ran a thin strip of cardstock through my label maker for the words “Who Are You” floating above them.

For this next card I put the image of Alice looking at her reflection in the looking glass directly on a piece of glass and colored on the backside with markers. I also rimmed the edge of the glass with a gold pen.

Here’s a few soldered glass pendants I did this week, each with a nature theme.

This one is an illustration from a vintage children’s book from 1929, it’s a sweet girl kneeling in the water at the ocean’s edge and she’s holding up a star fish, I added the words “mermaid dreams” cut from a vintage dictionary.

This one is also from a vintage children’s book, it’s a fawn running through the forest and I added the words “Oh, deer”.

This last one is a illustration from a really cool nature book from 1934, it’s a spiders web in a meadow, there’s even a tiny spider in the web, I think it’s a really unique and lovely illustration.

Here’s a cute little art card I made last week. It’s a sweet little fairy sitting on a mushroom wearing a paper crown I cut from gold metallic paper and holding a fairy wand with gold star punched from the same paper. I added a scalloped green paper hill and the words “fairyland” cut from a vintage children’s book. It’s layered on vintage book paper and cardstocks. Since the image of the girl was black and white I added some color to her with chalks.

Here’s some info on chalks. Chalks give you a soft pastel look (they are also called artist pastels) and they work nicely with vintage images, it looks alot like the tinting they did on their photos back then. I use q-tips to apply chalks, it gives you alot of control and it’s easy to color into small areas. Chalks can be blended and colors mixed but it’s usually very subtle. Also with the correct eraser chalks can usually be removed from most surfaces in case of mistakes, so that’s a big plus for them. I like chalks that come in little square “cakes” but “stick” chalks work pretty much the same way. Sometimes you might feel the need to “set” your chalks, a clear spray will work nicely, don’t use a sealant that needs to be brushed on, it will usually smear the chalk. Another fun thing to do with chalks is use a clear blender pen or colorless marker with them, simply rub the tip of the marker over the surface of your chalk and then color with it, it gives a much more vibrant tone to the chalk color and it’s easier to shade. Just rub the tip of the marker on a paper towel until it runs clear to clean it. Test your paper first though as these types of markers can sometimes leave an oily film behind.

Colored pencils can be used to color your vintage images too, they will give you a darker look and more shading but can sometimes look heavy handed on vintage images.

Here’s another small canvas collage (3 3/4″ x 2 3/4″) I just finished, it’s another caged bird theme. Just can’t seem to get away from that theme lately, I think this one is a little sad and haunting. The background is vintage music paper and I stamped the words “Private Collection” down one side, adhered it to the canvas and inked up the edges, then wrapped black grosgrain ribbon around the canvas to hide the staples. I added the words “I live in a cage” cut from a vintage book and laid over the transparency with the cage. I then added the red winged black bird image and the tag tied with hemp string on top of the transparency.

My mom recently came back from Florida (were she was born) and brought back some really neat tiny sea shells and ask if I wanted some for my artwork and of course I did:) I used them in this fun little collage of a mermaid laying on the beach. I love mermaids almost as much as I do fairies:) I took a vintage image of a lady in a swimsuit and cut off her legs and added the tail of a fish from a vintage nature book, they didn’t really “match” so I wrapped some rickrack around her waist and it helped to tie the two halves of her together (sounds like Dr. Frankenstein or something, hehe) I inked up the small canvas (which is 3 3/4″ 2 3/4″) with various shades of blues, greens and yellows and wrapped yellow grosgrain ribbon around the edges to hide the staples. I tore and sanded cardstock for the beach, attached the mermaid and then added real sand mixed with Tim Holtz’s glitter glue for a very realistic looking beach. I then added those great shells from my mom and stamped and cut out a plaque and added the words “A day at the beach” cut from a vintage book. Makes me wish I was at the beach!

If you know me you know I love animals, I’ve been a vegetarian for almost 20 years, have adopted several homeless animals over the years and am a big supporter for any and all causes that help animals. I’ve never done anything like this on my blog before, I always try to focus on artwork, techniques, products, etc. but this is such a worthy cause I thought I’d make a short post about it. There is a *wonderful* mixed media artist named Bernie Berlin and she runs a no kill shelter in TN called A Place to Bark and they are currently having their annual fundraiser. If you have an extra $10 ( or anything you can spare) to send her way it will go to a wonderful place for a wonderful cause. http://www.aplacetobark.blogspot.com/